The present invention is directed to a connection element which has two carrier members, each having parallel extending centering grooves for holding light waveguides relative to an abutment surface and an arrangement for holding two carrier members with the waveguides of one member aligned with the other. Each waveguide has a cladding portion adjacent its end which is stripped away so that the waveguide may be received in the centering groove and be covered by a cover. Each carrier member opposite to the abutment surface is provided with a recess for receiving the portion of the waveguide still having the cladding and an adhesive is used for fixing the waveguides in the recess and also in the grooves of the member.
A connecting element having carrier members having V-shaped centering grooves extending parallel from an abutment surface and terminating in a recess in the carrier member is disclosed in allowed U.S. patent application Ser. No. 634,468, filed July 24, 1984, which issued on Apr. 14, 1987 as U.S. Pat. No. 4,657,341, is incorporated by reference thereto and was based on a German Application resulting in German OS No. 34 08 783. The adhesive material that was used for fixing the stripped light waveguides, which are usually optical glass fibers, must be adequately hard and must frequently even be grindable. Epoxy glue materials are preferably employed for this purpose, and these exhibit the properties desired at this location to an adequate degree.
A recess additionally applied in the region of the carrier member is shaped significantly larger and accepts the totality of the light waveguides which still have their claddings and can likewise be encased with an adhesive material. It has been shown that damage to the light waveguide fibers can occur given employment of identical adhesive material in both the region of the centering grooves as well as in the region of the adjacent recess. In particular, the risk of formation of gaps or even of fractures in the stripped glass fibers occurs in the region of the transition from the centering grooves to the larger recess. The cause of this may possibly be because the mechanical stresses are generated at the transition as a consequence of the greater volume to be hardened in the region of the recess during a shrinking process and these mechanical stresses can produce a deterioration and/or damage to the light waveguides.